Thou Hast Ravished My Heart
by Philippa Somerville
Summary: He had been the strong one, the calm one, the steady one, for months now.  It was only to be expected that at some point he would stumble.  A sequel to My Beloved Is Unto Me.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**Author's Note:** Several people requested a follow-up to _My Beloved Is Unto Me_, and once I had worked my Doctor/Rose historical fiction piece (_The Lily and the Wolf_)out of my system, my thoughts turned back to this story. It's probably a good idea to read _My Beloved_ first, but not absolutely necessary. Both titles come from _The Song of Songs_ in the King James translation. Throughout this story section breaks are shown by two bold-faced words.

**Rose Tyler** stifled a yawn and leaned her head against the door frame of her living room. She raised a hand to rub the remains of sleep from her eyes as she considered the scene in front of her.

It happened often, when she awoke alone in their bed, that she experienced a terrifying few seconds of believing it was a dream. Even all these months later, the dimension cannon, the return to this universe, the painful days of edging toward each other…it had the seductive arc of a fantasy. She would grip the sheets, praying with all her might to no god in particular that it was real, that her brain had not tricked her with such cruel comfort. Then her eyes would focus on something–a pair of pants he had discarded the night before, a book he was reading lying open on the bedside table, a dark hair on the pillow next to hers–and she would begin to breathe again.

She found it hard to get used to the roiling of her emotions. Ever since their return from Norway three months ago, she felt tossed this way and that, from panic to a happiness so intense it made her throat burn. She had survived here during the years without him by schooling herself into a pragmatic, chilly focus on her work that kept her emotions firmly in check. Oh, she had had fun with Mickey, Jake, and Geoff, and she had enjoyed her family, particularly the simple pleasure of playing with little Tony. But it had been within a controlled range. She had let go the most with Mickey, but even that was complicated. To talk about her broken heart and her loss of the Doctor could not help but hurt Mickey–he had, after all, had his own heart broken by her because of the Doctor. Not that he would have ever stopped her from talking; the restraint came from her side.

Now the restraints were off. She and her new new new Doctor had cried and laughed, screamed and hollered like characters in a soap opera. Over the loss of the TARDIS, of Mickey and Donna, of the other him. Over the gain of each other. It was breathtaking, quite literally.

Her lips curling with pleasure, she contemplated him. He sat at his desk, which faced a large window in one corner of their living room. It was still absurdly early, particularly for a Saturday–the wan winter sun had barely begun to illuminate the room–and he had his desk lamp on, against whose light he was silhouetted. He wore only his pajama bottoms, and he was perched on the edge of his chair, his long legs tucked up under him in what looked to Rose like a distinctly uncomfortable position. He was hunched over papers on his desktop, chewing on the end of a pen that he held in his hand. A green pen, she saw, so she knew he must be marking papers. Probably lab reports, given that next to his chair was a stack of the binders in which he insisted his pupils keep their notes on labs from throughout the year.

Her eyes traveled along his form and she felt her heart rate increase. His hair was vertical, truly gravity-defying. A combination of bed-head and running his hands through it in frustration as he graded, no doubt. She bit her lip, suppressing a giggle as she remembered a visit to her parents' home two weeks ago when Tony had been blowing bubbles. Unbeknownst to the Doctor, a large number of the bubbles had attached themselves to the tips of his hair, giving him the appearance of an excitable Christmas ornament.

He moved his glasses up his nose, bringing her back to the present. She gazed at the long fingers that scratched the nape of his neck, at the lean length of his back, at the two dimples at the base of his spine, just above his waistband…and that did it. It always did. She moved toward him. She swung a leg over the chair and slid in behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest and curving her front into the graceful arch of his back. She said nothing, merely held on, feeling her heart race from desire and a remnant of her former panic. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to steady herself with the feel of his skin, the smell of him. She began to relax and felt like she might even be able to doze right there, as long as she didn't have to let him go.

After a few minutes, he said, "Rose?"

"Hmm?"

"I was hoping to finish these. Then I'll have no more work for the weekend."

She straightened, dropping her arms. "Sorry."

He twisted around in the chair as best he could and smiled at her. "Don't be sorry." He touched his forehead to hers briefly. "It's still early. Why not go back to bed? I'll wake you when I'm done."

"Okay." She extracted herself from the chair somewhat gracelessly, hopping on one foot to pull her leg back over the seat. He chuckled and reached out to grasp her hand and steady her. She smiled at him and turned to go.

"Rose?" She turned back. He was gazing at her, his eyes dark behind his spectacles. "I'll make it up to you. And then we'll have the whole weekend."

"Okay," she repeated.

Retreating to the bedroom, she crawled back into bed, settling herself on her side and wrapping her arms around a pillow. It was not a rejection, she knew that, in her mind at least. Her heart, however, always felt so raw. He was so…collected most of the time, and she felt like an open wound, like exactly the sort of love-struck girl she had always disdained back in school. She tried to keep this under control; clinginess and neediness were hardly attractive qualities, after all. She knew that much of her fear that he did not feel the same for her was rooted in the time when she was a teenager traveling with an alien, quivering with admiration and love and desire for him, in both his bodies. Her new, part-human Doctor had been the one to tell her that the Time Lord had not been rejecting her by not responding to her pitifully obvious crush–rather, she learned, he simply had not required physical love as part of his makeup. This explained so much, and had been such a relief, but the sense of inadequacy and the destabilizing effects of unrequited passion ran deep.

Unbidden, a memory came of Shireen saying earnestly to her–probably about Jimmy Stone, heaven help her–"You've got to be cool, Rose. You have to pretend you don't give a toss about him." She couldn't help but smile. She had crossed universes, but would she ever really, truly, grow up?

**She must** have fallen asleep; the proof being that she now found herself drifting awake to the feel of his mouth on her neck. His body pressed against hers, in a mirror image of the way she had been draped over him on the chair. She heard him whisper, "Rose. Wake up."

"Did you finish marking the labs?"

"Yes." He sucked hard and she groaned.

"Did they do well?"

"Do you really want to talk about my students' lab reports?" He slid his hands under her pajama top and found her breasts. She closed her eyes, drowning in sensation, and did not answer him.

Suddenly his hands vanished and he rolled her on her back, slowly worked her knickers off, and then crawled up to lay on top of her, his mouth seeking hers.

"Mmm." She twisted her head to avoid him, causing his lips to make contact with her jawline. "I have morning breath."

"Me too. Don't care."

She demurred, pressing her face to his shoulder. "Really, Doctor. Let me brush my…"

"Rose." His tone was serious, stopping her short, and she met his eyes. The intensity there made her gasp. Once he was sure he had her attention, he said, "I need you. Now. And I don't give a damn about your breath."

She nodded. As he slid inside her, he gasped, "Oh…I love you." She clung to him and stayed silent, tears of love and relief trickling from the corners of her eyes.

**Later, he** lay with his head pillowed on her stomach, his hand running idly over the scars on her legs. Suddenly he said, "I wish…" She waited, but he did not continue.

"What do you wish?"

He squeezed her hip. "Never mind. What do you want to do today?"

She regarded the top of his head for a long moment, but he did not turn to meet her eyes, so she answered. "It's supposed to be cold, so I'd say something indoors." He made a discontented noise, and she smiled. "Why, do you have energy to burn?"

"My job is not as physical as yours, Rose. I don't get to run around all day."

"Doesn't sound so bad to me." She rotated her shoulder experimentally; it had pretty much healed, but she had dislocated it ten days ago, tumbling down a staircase during a mission with Jake, and it still ached occasionally.

"Okay, how about a compromise?" He outlined a route for a walk. It sounded infernally long to Rose, especially on a cold day, but he headed off her objections by telling her that he had made reservations for lunch at a gastropub she had been wanting to visit, conveniently located at the end of his proposed outing. She relented.

"I should have known that when you asked me you already had a plan in mind," she grumbled, but with a small smile.

He grinned back at her. "Yes, you should have."

She sat up, pushing him off her. "I'll shower, then."

He watched her as she disappeared into the bathroom. "Dress warmly," he called, but he wasn't certain that she heard him.

**He had** known she was there, of course. Not all his Time Lord senses had survived the metacrisis, but his hearing was superb. His eyesight, unfortunately, was not–no longer were the specs just for show, for looking authoritative and scholarly. His hearing was different, however. He had heard the almost imperceptible sound of her feet on the carpet as she came to stand in the living room doorway, and he had smiled to himself, knowing that he was being ogled. It was possible, just possible, that he had decided not to put a shirt on this morning in anticipation of the moment when she came wandering in looking for him. One of his great goals in his new life was to tempt Rose Tyler into bad behavior. But he hadn't expected her to be up so early. He still had ten lab reports to get through, and he wanted to finish them so he could focus on her. It had been a difficult week. She had been grumpy about the pain in her shoulder and the sling she had had to wear the first few days after the injury. He had been worried for her but trying not to smother her, as well as frustrated by matters at work–administrative meetings he could barely tolerate and the fact that his students were having trouble settling back into a rhythm after their winter holidays.

Lost in his thoughts, he had not noticed that she had moved from the doorway until she slid into the chair behind him, pressing into him. He felt her breasts against his back and her hands on his chest, her fingertips gently circling. He immediately began to harden and he shut his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. He really didn't want this work hanging over him. If he could have another half hour, the weekend would be theirs.

When he told her this, he felt her draw into herself, emotionally as well as physically, and he felt a stab of regret mixed with annoyance. He felt so often that he had to walk on eggshells around her, trying not to make her think he was rejecting her. He knew why, knew that it wasn't her fault, but he wished so dearly that they could get past the layers of hurt and resentment left over from her relationship with his former self, and from the scene at Bad Wolf Bay. When would a simple request, such as asking for a half hour's time to finish work, no longer be interpreted as a statement loaded with meaning?

After she returned to bed he finished the reports as quickly as he could and went in to find her. She had fallen asleep. As he looked down at her, her face peaceful, her body wrapped around a pillow, her top leg drawn up almost to her chest, he felt his heart clench with love. She wore only a pajama top and knickers, and the scars on her legs stood out clearly in the morning light. How could he blame her for her fear, when she had been through so much? He resolved once again simply to wait, to keep on loving her until she knew it, really believed it bone-deep. Her anxiety would ebb, he told himself, given enough time.

**After lunch** he persuaded her to walk home as well, although he set a much slower pace than he had on the way out. The lunch had been leisurely and a bit boozy, and now it was late afternoon and the sun was low in the sky. They took the river walk, strolling with their arms around each other, silent but intent on the embrace. He felt remarkably contented, having pushed from his mind his earlier concerns. He inhaled deeply, smelling her shampoo faintly below the crisp air that blew along the Thames. She snuffled slightly because of the cold and buried her face for a moment in his shoulder. "I love you," she whispered, and when he looked at her, her eyes contained a look of promise that made him hopeful for a most pleasant return home. He opened his mouth to answer her, but at that moment her mobile rang. She pulled a face but disengaged herself from him, muttering, "That's Jake's ringtone, sorry…" She fished the phone out of her inner coat pocket and answered. "Jakey, it's Saturday."

He watched her intently for a few moments as she walked toward the railing overlooking the river, then turned to lean against it, tipping her head back to stare at the sky as she listened to what was obviously a long story from her partner. He saw the corners of her mouth begin to curl and her eyes show unmistakable sparks of interest. He felt his own jaw tighten, then forced it to relax. It was good that she loved her work, and certainly a good thing for Britain and for the Earth that she was doing it. But, if he admitted the absolute truth, he was a bit jealous of the excitement of her job and of the way it consumed her focus. It also scared him that the label "jeopardy-friendly" clearly still applied to her; although she had modified her behavior a great deal since he arrived, she still had a habit of flinging herself into a situation before assessing it fully, of taking risks herself before letting her team step in. He supposed that he was at least partially to blame for that. As she had once said, who had taught her to be first through the door? But the fragility of these human bodies frightened him. As unpleasant as regeneration could be, it was an insurance policy. No such thing existed now.

His assessment of the situation was precisely accurate. Rose was listening to Jake outline a fascinating call that had come in from the south of England. "Unexplained happenings, Rosie," he began with glee. She felt the familiar jolt of adrenaline as she heard the first details of the case. But then her eyes strayed to the Doctor, standing a few meters away, staring out over the river. There was obvious tension in his form, and she remembered that he had cleared his weekend of work to spend it with her. She looked at his profile, at the crinkles around his eyes where he squinted into the distance. She considered the line of his body, how he stood with his hands deep in the pockets of his peacoat, a striped scarf around his neck and a grey wool knit cap on his head. A lock of brown hair had escaped onto his forehead and was being ruffled by the breeze. Abruptly she spoke, interrupting Jake in mid-sentence. "Jakey, love, you know I'm off this weekend."

The Doctor turned his head at her words, looking at her with an inquiring lift of an eyebrow. She grinned back at him, tongue between teeth, and was rewarded with a flash of heat in his eyes. She said, "No, really, I mean it. Yes. Take Geoff. You can brief me Monday. Mmm-hmmm. Bye."

She clicked the phone off and reached out for him, entwining her arm through his again and turning him toward home.

"Interesting case?"

"Seems so."

"Why didn't you go?"

She snuggled into him without looking up. When she spoke her voice was full of mischief. "Actually, there was also a sighting of a unique, alien-human metacrisis right here on the Thames."

He felt warmth bloom in his chest. "Is that so?"

"Yep. I told Jake I would look into it. Make a detailed report."

He spun her fully into his arms, backing her into the railing and kissing her. She made a contented sound in her throat and slid her hands up under his coat and then down into the back pockets of his jeans, pulling him closer. They held each other tightly for a few moments, and then she whispered, so low he barely heard her, "There are times when…I don't want to be anywhere but with you. No matter how interesting the case. I feel like…" She stopped and he saw her blush and shake her head slightly.

"Rose." He lifted her chin and made her look at him. "It's exactly the same for me."

She stared at him for a long moment and then nodded. "Let's go home."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Their plan** for an uninterrupted weekend together was foiled when they realized that they were expected for Sunday lunch at the Tyler mansion. They had both forgotten this but were reminded by a phone message from Jackie that was waiting for them when they returned home. The Doctor surprised Rose by greeting this news with perfect equanimity. Although he might be loath to admit it to anyone, the truth was that he enjoyed the Tylers. He loved playing with Tony. He felt comfortable with Pete, who rarely asked more of him than to share a glass of red wine in companionable masculine silence, or occasionally to talk shop about a recent Torchwood discovery. As for Jackie…he smiled wryly, thinking of the way their relationship had evolved. He recalled the contempt with which his ninth self had treated her. Shame on him for not appreciating the core of strength under that loud and blowsy exterior. True, his tenth self had warmed to her a bit, but now he felt positively affectionate toward her. In part this was because Jackie, like Rose, had changed in the intervening years. While still vocal with her opinions and fierce in her defense of those she loved, she had mellowed, become more quietly observant and less quick to judge. Contentment with her new family had gave her an ease she had not had—understandably enough—when she was a single mum struggling with loneliness and lack of money. But he had to admit that it was in large part the changes within himself that had brought him closer to Jackie. For all his attachment to the human race when he was a Time Lord, he had not really understood them. Their emotions and desires and fears remained fundamentally foreign to him. Now that he was required to wrestle with those things himself, it became far less easy to label a woman like Jackie as irrational or overly emotional.

They arrived at the mansion in the late morning on Sunday. It had snowed the night before, and so the Doctor was immediately swept outside by Tony for a snowball fight. When they finally came back inside, sporting matching red and runny noses, the smell of roast beef permeated the house. Having cleaned himself up, the Doctor made his way to the kitchen. He was surprised to find Jackie alone, humming to herself as she sliced carrots. She had an almost empty gin and tonic on the counter next to her; taking up her glass, he refreshed her drink while making one for himself. He served hers without lime, as she preferred, which worked perfectly since he liked two slices of lime in his own. As he placed her glass at her elbow with a satisfying clink on the granite, she smiled at him and said, "Ta."

"Where is Rose?"

"No idea, love. Haven't seen her for an hour or more. Maybe talking about work with Pete?"

"Can I help you with something?"

"You've done enough, entertaining Tony all this time, giving me a chance to cook."

"I think I tired him out. Maybe he'll actually sit still at the table."

Jackie snorted. "And maybe pigs will fly."

"Really, Jackie, can I prepare the potatoes, or something?" He indicated an unopened bag of fingerling potatoes on the countertop.

"Oh goodness, you're right, I need to get those in the oven or everyone will starve before I have lunch ready. Here." She gave him the bag, a knife, and a cutting board, and then retrieved a roasting pan from the cupboard. "Halve them and put them in here, and then we'll season them." She placed the bottle of olive oil within his reach. Salt, pepper, and fresh herbs were already out on the counter, he noted with approval. On arriving in this universe, feeling bored and then, when she became pregnant, ravenously hungry, Jackie had decided with her typical pragmatism to solve both problems at once and take cooking classes. She had continued them after Tony's birth. One of the luxuries she never tired of in her new life was having the money to buy fresh and high-quality food. And she adored exercising her newfound skills on the Doctor, who always consumed her dishes with vocal appreciation. It was so much more rewarding than feeding Pete, who was an absent-minded eater, or Tony, who had a toddler's picky tastes…and the less said about Rose in this regard, the better.

They worked together quietly as the Doctor methodically sliced potatoes between sips of his drink and Jackie finished cutting the carrots and set out to make a citrus glaze for them. The kitchen was deliciously warm, and the Doctor soon shed his sweater, uncovering the long-sleeved dark green henley he wore underneath. He thought that there were few states as pleasant as being physically tired, mildly hungry, and slightly floaty-feeling from a cocktail.

Jackie tasted the sauce for the carrots, nodded, and turned the heat down as low as it would go. She checked on the roast and then returned to sit on one of the stools that lined the counter opposite where the Doctor was working. She tasted her drink and made an approving noise. After a moment she asked, "So, how are you, love?"

The Doctor glanced up quickly before returning his attention to his task. "We're fine. We had a nice lunch yesterday—actually, you would like the place…"

She interrupted him. "I'm not talking about Rose. I'm talking about you."

"Me? I'm fine." She narrowed her eyes at him, and he protested, "I am, Jackie!"

"You're telling me this hasn't been a difficult adjustment? To this life? No TARDIS? And to Rose being…well, the way Rose is now?"

He grimaced slightly. "Blimey, Jackie, I didn't know I was going to get interrogated when I offered to slice potatoes."

Despite his gentle attempt at evasion, she still pushed. "You don't miss it?"

Annoyed, he slapped the knife down hard on the counter. "Of course I do!" This was said almost at a shout, and he hastily opened his mouth to apologize, but the look on her face told him it was unnecessary.

"It's okay to be sad about it. It's not a betrayal of Rose or anyone else if you are."

"Rose would not see it that way."

"How has she been, with you?" He hesitated and she reached out and touched his arm. "I'm not asking you to reveal anything private if you don't want to, Doctor. I just thought it might help you to talk to someone."

He sighed and cut through the last potato, handing Jackie the knife to put into the sink. He opened the olive oil and tilted the green-gold liquid out over the vegetables. It made a satisfying glug-glug in the silence. "It has been difficult at times. She's always ready to think I'm leaving. I feel like I'm constantly monitoring what I say or do, so that I don't give the wrong impression."

"That must be exhausting."

Having confessed his frustration, he felt a guilty need to defend Rose. "She is trying. She just…she has been left so many times."

"Yeah, she has. By her dad when he died the first time, of course, and then a second time during that business with you. And of course by you. How many times?" Jackie raised her hand to tick off the examples on her fingers. "The game station, the French woman, both times on Bad Wolf Bay…"

"Oi," he said quietly, but couldn't muster much conviction for his objection. "Most of those times I had no choice, or I was just trying to protect her." He reached for the salt and pepper and added them liberally to the dish.

"Still, doesn't make her feel the ground's any more secure under her feet, does it?"

"I didn't realize she'd told you about…about all of that."

"I was on bed rest at the end of my pregnancy with Tony. Had high blood pressure. That was right at the time that Rose collapsed and started her recovery program. We spent a fair amount of time in bed together, just talking. She filled me in on a lot of your…adventures."

He nodded. "I told you, I understand why Rose is afraid."

"I know that, Doctor. But just because something is comprehensible, just because it's justified, doesn't necessarily make it easy to deal with."

He met her eyes and felt a wave of relief at the sympathy and understanding he found there. Jackie picked up a sprig of rosemary and stripped the leaves from the stalk, rubbing them between her hands to crush them and then adding them to the potatoes. She smelled her fingers appreciatively and then said, "You and I, Doctor, are the two people in the world who love Rose the most. So I'm going to say something to you that I would not say to anyone else, not even Pete." She looked sharply at him and for a moment he saw a flash of the old Jackie. "And if you repeat any of this to Rose…"

He held up his hands. "Believe me, Jackie, I wouldn't dare."

She nodded and picked up the dish of potatoes, taking it to the oven and sliding it in. She closed the oven door and said, "When Rose was young, if she had a problem, she came to me. Even if she agonized about it for a while, she would find her way to me. Like when she thought she was pregnant from that lout Jimmy."

The Doctor grinned. "She told me about that. Poor bastard, faced with an angry Jackie Tyler."

She smiled at him and shot back, "He deserved everything he got." She sobered. "But then, when we came over here, she stopped doing that. Oh, she told me things about your past adventures, but she wouldn't discuss how she was feeling in the present, or how she was going to deal with being stuck here. Instead of talking, she'd go on a dangerous mission. It was like…the danger, the adrenaline…they were a drug." Jackie paused and he saw tears well in her eyes. "I know part of it was my fault. I was pregnant with Tony and wrapped up in my new life with Pete. I probably didn't pay as much attention to her as I should have in those early months." He squeezed her arm, trying to offer some comfort. She laid her hand over his briefly, before continuing: "And…I was so angry with her, in the beginning."

"Angry? Why?"

Jackie shook her head, staring down at her drink, and did not answer. The Doctor searched his memory and then realized. "The lever room? When she left you behind?"

"She went back to you without even a second thought! No hug, no kiss, no goodbye. She didn't even hesitate for an instant. How do you think that felt?" A tear leaked from Jackie's eye and she wiped it away impatiently. "I understood, Doctor. I know what it's like to love someone that much. But still. I was angry about that. For so long, it was just me and Rose against the world. The two of us. And then you came, and…" She exhaled and then admitted, "I was jealous."

He nodded somberly. "I'm sorry, Jackie."

"Stop apologizing. Not everything is your doing, or your fault."

"Did you ever tell her that she had hurt you?"

"Last thing she needed once she was stuck here was me piling on things for her to worry about."

"She ended up here with you, at least."

Jackie shrugged. "If you can call it that." He raised his eyebrows at the harshness of her tone, and she said, "Let's be honest with each other, Doctor. She checked out of her life. She was suicidal. She stopped eating, and even after she recovered from that, she'd go on those missions, take insane risks. Pete thought he'd hidden it from me, and Rose probably thought I wouldn't figure it out, but I cornered Mickey and he told me. And he was right! I'm her mother. Not that there was anything I could do about it even when I knew."

The Doctor said slowly, "I think she believes she was doing the right thing, taking the risks and sparing her team…"

"Bollocks. That's the line she feeds us, but the truth is, it was because she didn't care if she lived or died. You weren't here, Doctor. You didn't see what she was like. It was terrible to watch." Jackie drew in a long breath. "I was so afraid that she would die, and that I wouldn't be able to forgive her for destroying herself." She rubbed her forehead. "Until the dimension cannon research started and she thought she might get back to the other you. Then things got a bit better. And now…I want her to be happy again, Doctor. And the way she loves you, I think she could be."

"That's what I want. To make her happy."

"I know that. And I know that you recognize that Rose is not the same girl you started traveling with years ago. But you need to…" Her voice broke and she stopped, gathering herself. "You need to do better for her than I did."

He reached out and put an arm around her shoulder. "Oh, Jackie."

"You need to make her talk to you. Don't let her retreat into herself and push you away."

He nodded somberly. "I've been trying…"

"Wait. I'm not done. You also need to recognize how hard this might be on you. You have lost things too. She's not the only one hurting. Don't let her focus on her own pain and not help you with yours. Call her out on it." She stepped away from his embrace and looked him in the eye. "Let me tell you something I have learned. It's one thing to live a great romance. My Pete died and I got back a Pete from another universe. It had to end happily ever after, right? But then there's the reality of loving someone day to day. That was hard for me and Pete. And it might be even harder for you and Rose. But I want you to know that I'm here to listen. I love my daughter more than anything, but I also know her and how difficult she can be. Please feel that you can talk to me, if you need to."

For once, the Doctor was at a loss for words, and so he merely pulled Jackie back into a tight embrace. Finally he whispered, "Thank you." She squeezed him around the middle for a few moments, then gently separated herself and wiped her eyes. She smiled at him and then said, "Now, you and I need to finish lunch and talk about more cheerful things, before Rose or Pete see us crying on each other."

And so when Rose found them twenty minutes later, they were chatting happily while making a salad together. With surprise in her voice, Rose said, "There you are, Doctor. What have you been up to?"

Jackie said cheerily, "He's been helping me with cooking—slicing potatoes and cucumber for the salad. Do you know, Rose, I love this new Doctor of yours. Can you imagine what the one in the leather would have done, if he got his hands on a knife around me?" The Doctor mockingly brandished his paring knife at her, and the two of them laughed a little too uproariously at the joke.

Rose looked back and forth between them, took in the empty cocktail glasses and the delicious smells of the kitchen, and shook her head. Her mother and the Doctor, bonded. Who would have guessed? "Whatever. As long as we have lunch soon. I'm starving."

"You know what they say about good things, Rose," Jackie answered.

"Yeah, well," said Rose, plopping down on a chair and fishing a cherry tomato out of the salad, "I'm tired of waiting."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Late on** Monday afternoon, the Doctor made his way toward Rose's office. His school in the East End of London was about a half-hour's walk from Torchwood tower, and he always marveled at the way the neighborhood changed so quickly from the shabby row houses and council estates that surrounded the school to the sleek modern high rises and renovated lofts of Canary Wharf. He reached up and lifted his collar as a particularly vicious gust of wind pushed sleet into his face. Just after five o'clock, and yet already dusk was well advanced. It had been a good day in his classes, and he had been cheerful when he left the school, but he now felt his spirits sink. The sun was so feeble in wintertime England; it rose late in the morning and it sank before he was done cleaning up his classroom from the day's activities. He supposed it had to do with vitamin D or circadian rhythms or some such thing, but he found the short days incredibly depressing. Of course, when he was a Time Lord, if he did not care for the weather in a particular place, he would have simply moved ahead to summer, or gone to another place on Earth, or to another planet altogether. He had been the master of time and space; now he was at the mercy of it. He could do nothing but suffer through the dark and cold winter along with the rest of humanity. And thus the mundane fact of shorter winter days threw into relief all that he had lost and all his revulsion at his new helplessness. He sighed and bent his head into the wind.

He was walking to Torchwood because just before he left school he had sent a text message to Rose asking if she was still at work and what she wanted to do for dinner. She had risen obscenely early that morning to go to the office. Jake had called when he returned from his reconnaissance mission, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was four in the morning and sensible people were fast asleep. Rose had clearly not minded, however, and after hanging up the phone she had showered, dressed, and made herself a travel mug of coffee at record speed. She had kissed him as he lay, awake but still in bed, and whispered, "I need to go in and hear Jake's report."

"At this hour?"

"Yep. Have a good day at school. I love you."

"I love you too. Madly."

That brilliant smile and then she was gone. It was more than twelve hours later that he texted her, thinking that perhaps she had left work early. He got back a brusque reply that she was still working and he should come to Torchwood. Well, maybe it wasn't meant to be brusque. Everything sounded crabby in text form, he thought, except perhaps the occasional sexy message she would send him when she knew he was in a meeting, just to distract him.

Now he arrived at Torchwood and felt a wave of relief when he entered the warm and bright lobby. He shook the worst of the water off of his coat and headed toward the front desk. As a consultant with the firm, he had a badge but was not technically supposed to be admitted without having a regular employee come down and escort him. But the young woman working at the desk–Karen, he thought, although he might be wrong; he had a hard time remembering names now–had a bit of a crush on him and waved him through with a blush and a smile. She asked, "Do you want me to let Ms. Tyler know you're here?" He grinned and shook his head, placing a conspiratorial finger to his lips. She flushed an even deeper shade of pink and nodded.

He took the elevator up to the second highest floor in the tower. Being in this building, this mirror image of the place where he had lost Rose, always made him feel uneasy. There was even a lever room here, Rose had told him–well, there weren't any levers, obviously, but there was an equivalent space. Rose had described for him how she had sobbed and screamed on her side of the wall when they had first been separated. She had gone in the room only once after that, when she had first come to work here, but she had gotten too upset and had never returned. "'S just a storage room now, full of shelves and boxes. No reason why I'd have to go in there, thank God."

He emerged from the elevator onto Rose's floor. It always struck him how much Torchwood looked like any other office, at least up on these upper floors. The lower levels, where the labs and clinics were located, were a different matter. But this floor…it looked like a financial firm. Glass-walled offices lined the outer edge of the space, giving their occupants a coveted view out over London. In the center of the floor was open space with large conference tables where teams could congregate. And indeed, at one of the tables a meeting appeared to be just wrapping up. A whiteboard had been moved next to the table and a rough map of some sort sketched out on it in red marker. On the surface of the table large maps or charts had been unrolled. Geoff was bent over one of them, Rose and Jake over another. The Doctor was out of earshot but he watched as Rose discussed something with her team, her brow furrowed as she gestured between the two charts. They seemed to come to an agreement as Rose and Geoff straightened up, both nodding decisively. Rose leaned backward, stretching her spine.

Jake lifted an arm and absentmindedly began to rub her shoulder, without taking his eyes off the map. Rose leaned into Jake's touch, and a stab of jealousy went through the Doctor. Not sexual jealousy, obviously, that would be silly, what with Jake being gay. Nor was it because of any specific problem that he had with Jake, who had been a good friend to him since his arrival in this universe. But…a small, petty part of him hated the ease that Rose had with Jake, and with Geoff too, for that matter. The utter trust that came from having survived missions together and having saved each others' lives more times than they could count. The Doctor shook himself and moved forward into their line of sight. Just before they noticed him, he heard Geoff say, with a sigh, "I wonder what the hell we're going to find on the other side." At that moment Rose looked up and her eyes met the Doctor's. He saw surprise in her gaze, and her eyes flicked back and forth between him and Geoff. He knew she was wondering if he had heard what her teammate had said, but he kept his own expression bland. After just a moment of hesitation, her face broke into a smile and she ran the few steps to him, flinging herself into his arms. He held her tightly, breathing in her scent. Against her hair, he said, "Long day?"

"God, yes. Are you starving? I am."

"Did you not eat lunch?"

"Forgot about it. Working too hard. And I drank way too much coffee. So I'm jumpy as well as famished."

"A delightful combination," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Jake and Geoff moved toward them and the Doctor shook hands with them both. "How are you, Doctor?" Jake asked. "How are those kids treating you?"

"I'm managing, thanks."

"You know, the next time you've got a few free hours, we picked some stuff up on our last mission that we can't identify. Maybe you'd have a look?"

"Sure. There's a school holiday on Friday. What about then?"

Jake paused. "Maybe. Depends on what's going on with this thing…" he gestured vaguely toward the maps on the table behind him.

"Is this the new mission? The one you called about so charmingly early this morning?" The Doctor arched an eyebrow at Jake, who had the grace to look abashed.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Knew Rosie would want to hear about it right away."

"What did Geoff mean by 'the other side'?"

All three teammates exchanged glances and said nothing for a moment. The Doctor felt a surge of annoyance. Three against the world, and that included him. Just as the silence threatened to become uncomfortable, Rose took a breath and said, "Doctor, I'll fill you in at home. I want to get out of here. Let's get some dinner on the way, okay?"

"Of course."

Rose turned to Jake and Geoff. "I'll see you guys bright and early tomorrow. No carousing tonight, mind. We need to be fresh." She pointed a finger at Jake, who raised his hands and adopted an expression of pure innocence.

"I'm hurt, Rose. When have you known me not to be fresh?"

Rose laughed and raised up on her toes to give Jake a peck on the cheek. "Never once. Now good night, both of you."

**The Doctor** sat across from Rose, resting his hands on the waxed tablecloth and trying to suppress a grin. They were in their favorite Chinese restaurant, which was conveniently located about halfway between Torchwood and their flat. More often than not they ate take-out from here that Rose would pick up on her way home, so it seemed like a rare treat to be sitting in the dining room, plain as it was. The décor was absolutely standard for such restaurants, right down to the red paper lanterns. But everything was kept shiningly clean and the food was far above the standard of the other places they had sampled before finding this one. The waitress tonight appeared to be new, however, which necessitated Rose's lengthy effort to convince her that yes, she did in fact want her food very spicy. One of the many changes in Rose since she had come to this universe was her choice of restaurant food. She no longer ate chips, but rather had developed a taste for extremely hot dishes. It was not a proclivity he shared. Once the waitress left Rose leaned back in her chair and looked at him. "We'll see if she really believed me."

He indicated the small pot of chili sauce that sat on the table next to the soy sauce. "You can always add that, I suppose."

She grinned slyly. "I'm afraid I'm going to be unkissable tonight."

He gazed back at her unblinkingly. "Well then, I'll just have to kiss you everywhere but your mouth."

She flushed and looked down at the table, using her fingernail to scratch a groove into the tablecloth. "Sounds good," she said softly, the corner of her lips curving in a smile. After a moment, she looked back up and rolled her shoulders, reaching her arms above her head and stretching. "God, I'm tired."

"I don't doubt it. You were up and out awfully early."

"Mmm."

"Rose. What is this mission?"

She leaned forward and clasped his hand. "I'll tell you when we get home. Let's enjoy our dinner. Okay?"

"You're not making me at all anxious by avoiding my questions. Really." He did not bother to suppress the sarcasm in his voice.

"Doctor. Please."

He sighed. "If that's what you want."

"Thanks." At that moment, the waitress reappeared with their entrees. Rose picked up her chopsticks and looked at her dish for a moment before reaching in and fishing a long, red, wicked-looking chili out from among the prawns. She looked up at him with a gleeful grin and waggled her eyebrows. He couldn't help it. He laughed at her, and he forgot his apprehension for the moment.

**They sat** on the couch in their living room, both holding glasses of red wine. The Chinese restaurant served no alcohol, and so she had asked him if he wanted something to drink when they returned home. He had accepted and now sat, full of food and lulled by the pleasant sensation of Rose's legs draped over his lap. He was so tired, from waking early and working and then walking through the bad weather. But he could not fully relax, because he was waiting for Rose to fill him in on what she was doing at work. He knew that her reluctance to tell him meant it was something he would not like. That in turn meant that it was almost certainly something dangerous. Jake and Geoff had responded to a call a couple days ago; had they figured out what the caller had seen? Some sort of unpleasant alien who needed to be corralled? The thought made his stomach contract. Rose was still so jeopardy friendly. He knew–he knew–it was part of her job and that she loved her job. But it was so hard now, as a human, to do what he had done so blithely as a Time Lord–to watch Rose walk into a dangerous situation. He tried to bring his anxiety under control and took a sip of his wine, fixing his eyes on Rose, who lay back against a cushion with her eyes closed, her hand slowly rotating her wine glass and aerating the liquid within. As if she could feel his gaze on her, she opened her eyes and took a small drink. Without preamble she said, "The call that Jake and Geoff answered on the weekend."

"Yes."

"Turned out not to be an alien. Or, at least, not an alien here on earth."

"What do you mean?"

"People were disappearing from this one specific spot in a village in Dorset." Rose paused and smiled. "From just behind the pub, actually, so for a long time it went unreported, since the people who disappeared were mostly drunk and kept showing up about a day later, disoriented and unsure where they'd been. People put it down to them blacking out from too many pints and then surfacing with a hangover." She drew a breath and continued. "But then it happened to a barmaid at the pub. Everyone knew she never touched alcohol, so when she had the same story, they started to pay attention, and someone called us. That's why Jake and Geoff went down there Saturday evening. They found it."

"It?"

"It's a portal of some kind. Someone's transporting people away and then returning them. Jake and Geoff sent one of our instruments through but couldn't get much data. There must be some kind of shielding device–we could see that the instrument was still running for a while but not much information was coming back." She sighed. "Our best guess is that someone's got a ship in orbit with a perception shield, or maybe is moving people to somewhere else down here on the surface. But we need to figure out what's going on."

He felt terribly certain that he knew where this was going, but he asked anyway. "And so what will you do?"

She looked surprised that he would ask. "We're going down there tomorrow, of course. Geoff and Jake set up a perimeter around the portal, so no one should stumble into it until we get down there. Then we'll go through and see what's going on."

His skin prickled. "You'll go through?"

"Sure." She gazed at him, her expression blank, as if she couldn't imagine why he would object to such a plan. He pushed her legs off him and stood up, his glass still in his hand, looking down on her.

"You're going to go through some portal with no knowledge of what's on the other side. It could be another universe, or…"

"Doctor, most of the people have come back completely unharmed. We've done scans on them."

He looked at her in disbelief. "Most of the people?"

"One's still missing. But the people in the village say he's a real eccentric, known for wandering off–he's probably back here and just off on one of his walkabouts."

He suddenly remembered something she'd said a few minutes before. "You said…the instrument was sending back signals for a while?" She looked down at her lap. "Rose?"

She fiddled with her watch, not meeting his gaze. "Whoever's on the other side stopped the instrument. Turned it off. Sent it back to us though, which was nice. S'an expensive bit of equipment." She was striving for a light tone, he could see, which only exacerbated his rising fury.

"So you're just going to gallivant through some kind of portal to who knows where, into the hands of someone who knows enough to send you a message not to interfere, and who may have killed one of the people who's disappeared."

She looked at him now, and he saw the frost in her eyes. "That's about the most hysterical interpretation you could put on the situation, Doctor. Whoever it is didn't harm the equipment, just turned it off. And we have no evidence that anyone's been hurt, much less killed. And," now she rose and pointed a finger at him, "we don't 'gallivant' anywhere. Two of us will go through, appropriately armed. With sensors on us so the person remaining behind can monitor us."

"You have no idea how you'll get back."

"No, I don't. But we have every reason to believe we can get back. Everyone else…"

"Not everyone else!" He was shouting now.

"I told you…"

"You have no idea what happened to that missing man! He could be…being dissected as we speak!"

"If so, we'll get him back. He wasn't armed. He was drunk. He had no experience with aliens. None of those are true of us." She was maddeningly calm and he wanted…he wanted to make her angry. To make her understand that she made him feel so helpless.

"No, Rose."

Her eyebrows lifted. "No? What do you mean?"

"You're not going through there. I'm sure you'd never consider being the one who stays behind while Jake and Geoff go through. But I'm telling you now, you are not going to be the one going through."

"Don't be silly, Doctor. Jake and I will go through. Geoff monitors us. That's how it works, at least since Mickey left."

"No."

"You're forbidding me?" Her voice was filled with disbelief and growing anger.

"I am. You can't take these kind of risks."

She set her glass down with a sharp click on the coffee table. "That's rich, coming from you."

"What?"

"The man who unlatched himself and fell into the pit, just for kicks? Just to see what was down there? Didn't matter that you left me behind? The man who jumped through a mirror after Reinette? I'd get down off your high horse right now if I were you, Doctor."

"That was me as a Time Lord, Rose. I wasn't human. I had more than one body to work with. You don't. Hell, I don't anymore."

"I take calculated risks, Doctor. We prepare and plan to mitigate them. You insult me and you insult my team by implying that we're just leaping into things."

"I'm sorry, Rose. I don't mean that, but you have more things to think of now."

"Geoff has kids and a wife. That's why Jake and I go through."

"And what about me?" He felt stupid and weak for asking, but it was the question his heart was shouting. And he was angry with Rose for making him ask it out loud.

"What about you?"

"I need you, Rose. I need you to come back to me."

She drew her breath in on a hiss, her eyes full of fury. "Lucky for you then that I'm the one who always comes back to you. You're the one who leaves. I'm the one who finds the way across universes. You're the one who gives up."

"Dammit, Rose, that's not fair."

"No? It's also not fair for you to ask me to give up the job that saved my life just so that you don't have to worry about me. I'm not going to lose everything I've counted on just to be with you."

That was too much. The implication that he had not lost…he could see Donna's face suddenly, could hear the engine of the TARDIS. The rage he felt needed some physical expression, and he felt his muscles tighten as he hurled his half-finished glass of wine against the wall. The twinge in his shoulder, the sound of the glass shattering, the sight of the red liquid running down the white wall…they all felt so good. It was startling, how good it felt to lose control.

He looked at her. Her face registered shock but also cold anger. They stared at each other, both breathing hard. Then, before he could even begin to formulate something to say next, she turned on her heel and was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Jake Simmonds** bounced on the balls of his feet and hummed along to the music being pumped into his ears as he rode the elevator up Torchwood tower. It was cliché, perhaps, but he knew of no better way to quell the nerves that threatened before the start of a mission than a pounding pre-dawn run and plenty of loud music. He glanced at his watch. It was five-thirty in the morning. He grinned to himself, thinking that he'd probably beat Rose into the office–always a point of pride for them, on mission day.

The elevator doors opened with a chime he could not hear over the din in his ears, but he immediately spotted the light in Rose's office across the floor. "Bloody hell, Rose," he muttered, heading in that direction. When he arrived outside the glass door of her office, however, she was not sitting at her desk or standing with a triumphant grin on her face, waiting for him. Rather, he could see her feet hanging off the end of her couch. Turning off his music player and pulling the buds from his ears, he softly opened her office door and crept around to see her. She was fast asleep, but even so he could see that it had been a bad night. There was a tissue box next to her and a pile of wadded-up tissues on the floor. Her face was pink and looked sticky from dried tears, her closed eyes swollen.

He sat down heavily in the chair opposite the sofa. "Bloody hell, Rose," he repeated, but with infinite gentleness this time. He had found Rose asleep in her office many times in the days before the dimension cannon, but this was the first occasion since. He had had a bad feeling the day before, when the team had evaded the Doctor's questions about the mission. He had seen the tightness around the Doctor's mouth as he listened to them. She would have to tell him later that night, Jake had thought at the time. And he doubted it would be pretty. He sighed. Apparently he had been right.

He contemplated his unconscious friend for a moment longer and then squared his shoulders. Geoff would be in very soon and, more importantly, so would others in the office. Rose was always so protective of her dignity at Torchwood. She had never made friends outside her team; at first she had been too fragile in her recovery to reach out, and after the incident with Glenn she had immersed herself even further in the comfort of her small, tight-knit group. It didn't help that her stepfather was the boss. She always felt pressured to prove that she'd earned her place on her own merits, and she was also wary of people befriending her with the purpose of getting to Pete. Oh, and then there was the whole death-wish thing, Jake thought grimly. He and Mickey had dragged her forcibly through the crises of her early days in this universe and had watched out for her thereafter in so far as they could. And Doctor or no Doctor, it was still his job to do so now. After all, Rose had coddled him through enough of his own crises–how many hours had they spent over bottles of wine as he poured out his pain over working with a man who was the exact image of his dead lover? The truth was that Jake thought of Rose as his sister; they were not related by blood, perhaps, but they were tied together by love and hardships survived. Jake liked the Doctor, but no returned lover was going to change the fact that he and Rose had each others' backs.

So Jake rose and walked to the long console table by the window, where Rose's coffee maker stood. He set coffee to brewing and then grabbed a small towel out of her toiletry cupboard. He went down the hall to the restroom and ran the hot water until it was boiling, soaking the towel in it and wringing it as dry as he was able. Then he returned to her office, poured a cup of coffee and carried it with him back to the sofa. He set the mug within reach on the floor and perched on the edge of the couch. He gently shook her shoulder.

After a moment or two Rose opened her eyes, bleary from sleep and from crying. She focused on Jake, but said nothing. He murmured, "I thought my days of waking you up here were over." She sat up slowly and ran her hands through her hair.

"So did I." Her voice was hoarse. Without another word he handed her the hot damp towel. She scrubbed her face and then gratefully accepted the coffee cup he proffered. "Ta, love," she whispered.

She wrapped both hands around the cup and sipped. He saw her shiver, almost as if the hot liquid made her aware of feeling cold. He stood up, walked behind the couch, and gently began to comb her hair with his fingers, slowly and carefully drawing it, lock by lock, back into a ponytail. He reached down to the arm of the couch where a hair band lay, abandoned the night before. He tied her hair back, then returned to the front of the couch and nodded in satisfaction at Rose's now neat and tidy appearance. "There now. You hardly look like you slept on your office couch at all." She smiled grimly and he came to kneel in front of her, clasping her hands. "Rosie girl." Her mouth twisted at the tenderness in his voice. "What happened?"

She looked away, and he saw the tears filling her eyes. He touched her cheek and turned her gaze back to him and repeated, "What happened?"

"I told him what we're doing today."

"And?"

"He forbade me to go, Jake. He forbade me." She spat the word out, with equal parts disbelief and venom.

"Why?"

"He's afraid I'll get hurt. He doesn't believe my abilities, in our team, because he doesn't know what we're capable of, how much we've learned. I know he still thinks of me as a kid, an amateur."

"I suppose we all look that way, to him."

"He's three months old, Jake!"

"He's also nine hundred."

She huffed in frustration. He paused, gathering his thoughts, weighing the dangers of plunging in. Oh, what the hell. "Rosie, he's not…" He drew a breath. "He's not out of line, wanting to see you come in the door at the end of the day. He loves you."

"I know."

Jake raised an eyebrow and waited.

"He loved me before, or so he says. Didn't stop him from leaving me then, over and over. And this job saved me. You, and Mickey, and Geoff, and this work, it all saved me. And he–he, of all people!–has the nerve to ask me to stop doing my work." She shook her head and pounded a fist into her leg in obvious frustration.

"And if he had decided to become…I don't know…a policeman, and was going into the line of fire every day, wouldn't you worry about him? Wouldn't it make you sick? Wouldn't you want, sometimes, for him to quit that job, no matter how much he loved it?"

She stared at him wordlessly, and Jake continued. "We're in the line of fire, Rose. He cleaned you up when you got the blaster wound on your arm. You can't expect a man to forget the sight of the person he loves being hurt that badly." Their eyes met, and she understood what he was thinking of, as she always did. She leaned in and touched her forehead to his.

After a moment she whispered, "And if he leaves again? What will I have, if I don't have work?"

He thought to protest that she would still have him, and that she could always return to work if she left, but he stopped himself, knowing that she was not thinking clearly. Instead he asked gently, "Do you have any reason to think he'll leave you again?"

She shrugged and opened her mouth to answer, when from outside her office came Geoff's cheery voice. "Oi! You two! Ready to save the world?"

Jake met Rose's eyes. "We're not done talking about this."

"Sure. But let's do this thing now." She stood and turned, raising a hand to Geoff, who stood on the other side of the glass wall. "You want coffee, Geoff?"

"I'll be in there in a minute," Geoff called back, heading into his own office.

Jake said, "Rose, call the Doctor before we go."

"No. It'll just upset me."

"You'll regret it if anything happens."

"Maybe so. But right now, I need my head clear." Jake took a breath to respond and she held up her hand. "Just…be on my side for now, okay?"

He stepped toward her and wrapped his arms around her. "Always and forever. You know that."

She clung to him for a moment, then pushed him resolutely back. He watched her shake herself and her demeanor began to change to the brisk manner she habitually wore at work. "I'm going to go and pack my kit. Give Geoff coffee when he comes in, and when I get back we'll go over the plan once more. I'd like to be gone within a half hour."

**The Doctor** woke with a start and stared uncomprehendingly for a moment at the bright sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. What time was it? Had he overslept? Why had Rose not woken him? Then the memory of the night before came crashing down on him. He had stayed up until almost dawn, hoping that she would return home, debating whether to follow her to Torchwood, where she had almost certainly gone. But he did not have the clearance to get into the building after hours, so there would be no way to get past the lobby. And besides, a stubborn part of him wanted her to come home to him, to acknowledge how badly she had hurt him, to apologize and climb into his arms. He had felt increasingly restless as the hours passed and she did not return. Finally, recognizing that he would be useless for work the next day, he telephoned his school's designated number to arrange for a substitute for his classes. Then he had stretched out on the bed, his mind racing and head aching, not expecting to sleep. Apparently he had.

Now he blinked at his watch. Almost noon. He grabbed for his cell phone. No message. The team had been planning to leave for Dorset sometime in the morning. She must have left without calling him. He sat in bed for a moment, contemplating this, then got up slowly, feeling achy. Were stress and anxiety like an illness? He felt terrible. He walked into the living room and stared at the wall that was stained with the spray of red wine where he had flung his glass. He had cleaned up the broken shards the night before while he waited for Rose to return, but he had not had the energy to tackle the stain. He saw that droplets had marked the carpet as well. He shuffled off to the shower, detouring into the bedroom to get his phone and bring it with him into the bathroom, hoping against hope that Rose might call. She did not, and a half hour later he regarded the piece of toast he had made himself for his breakfast–or lunch, now–with sick disbelief. No matter how bad the fight had been, how could she not have called before leaving? Might those angry words be the last…no. He would not even start down that road.

Well. He could be stubborn and righteous or he could talk to Rose. He picked up his phone and dialed her number, waiting as it rang. Finally, it clicked and a masculine voice came over the line. "Hello? Doctor?"

"Geoff?"

"Yeah, hi."

"Why are you answering Rose's phone?"

"Jake and Rose went through the portal about a half hour ago."

The Doctor found himself speechless. She really had left without contacting him. After a moment, Geoff said, "Doctor?"

"I'm here."

"I'm monitoring them. Their vitals are nice and strong. Nothing to worry about."

"Would you tell me if there were?"

Geoff's voice was gently reproving. "My wife sometimes calls in the middle of missions. I wouldn't want anyone to lie to her when she does."

"I'm sorry, Geoff."

"Don't be. It's nerve-wracking. I'll let you know if anything happens."

"Please. And…when she comes back, please tell Rose I love her. And to call me."

"Will do."

Geoff rang off and the Doctor subsided back into his chair, pushing the plate of toast away in disgust. Now he had to wait, with no work to distract his mind. He'd go mad if he just sat there waiting for news. He decided to go for a run, if only to burn off some of his restless energy.

**Ninety minutes** and another shower later, the Doctor sat in a comfortable chair next to the window in their living room. His leg muscles sang with every small movement he made. Not surprising, really, since he had made a concerted attempt to run himself absolutely ragged. He felt somewhat better, but not much. It was the sense of helplessness that was so terrible, he recognized. Being the one who waited while someone you loved went into the unknown–he had never realized that this was the harder role. It gave him new appreciation for all the companions he had so thoughtlessly left behind when the mood for exploration struck him. Especially Rose. In the last several days, both Jackie and Rose had listed for him the times when he had left her to pursue some quest or other, and he could have given more examples. He couldn't blame his Time Lord self, not really–it had just never occurred to him, big brain and all, how terrifying that might be. Well, he thought grimly, now he knew.

He ran his hands helplessly through his hair. What could he do to pass the time? His work satchel was lying next to the chair and he idly flipped it open, looking down into its depths. He saw a thick volume and furrowed his brow, not remembering for a moment what it was. Then he recalled that he had borrowed it off the literature teacher at his school. He pulled it out and contemplated the front cover: The Norton Anthology of American Literature. He had been attempting, in the months since he arrived here, to learn more about human culture and art. He had already known more than most humans, of course, but that was a pretty low standard. He was particularly interested in knowing the works that his own students were reading in their other classes. He flipped open the pages and saw that his colleague Matthew had stuck a post-it note to one of them. Turning to it, he read, "John: We're doing Emily Dickinson this week. Enjoy!"

Emily Dickinson. He had met her once, ages ago, in one of his earliest incarnations. He recalled a pale oval face, a bit too attenuated for beauty but suffused–as such artists so often were–with something indefinable that rendered her compelling. He had never particularly enjoyed her work, but he cast his eyes over the pages again now, until his gaze was arrested by an opening line:

"I cannot live with You–it would be Life"

He caught his breath and closed his eyes against a sudden surge of tears. That was the hellish thing about great art, he decided. It waited until you were vulnerable, until you were ready to hear it, and then hit you where you lived. He read on, absorbing the ode to intense and hopeless love.

The final lines were almost too much:

"So we must meet apart–  
>You there–I–here<br>With just the door ajar  
>That oceans are–and prayer<br>And that white sustenance–  
>Despair."<p>

The page blurred and he dashed helplessly at his eyes. Was that to be him and Rose? A love so great that it was unsustainable? The thought was breathtakingly painful. He sprang from the chair, letting the book fall to the floor. It was only four o'clock. How was he ever to last through a night like this? He needed to get out, to go somewhere. But where? His world here was Rose.

He was standing immobile with indecision when his phone rang.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**The Doctor** leapt to the phone and, hands shaking, pushed the button to answer it. "Rose?"

Silence on the other end of the line, then a hesitant voice. "John?"

Now it was his turn to pause, before his brain registered that he was, in fact, John Smith. But no one called him John except the people at work, so this couldn't be about Rose. "Yes?"

"Oh, it is you. It's Matt, from school."

Matt. Matthew, the literature teacher, who had lent him the book. "Matt, sure, hi."

"Hi. Just wanted to check and see if you were okay. You'd never missed a day before."

"Yes, I…had an appointment I'd forgotten about, so I had to get a last-minute replacement. Silly."

"So you're not sick?"

"No."

"Oh, great. Well, listen, a group of us are going to a pub. Would you care to join us?"

He considered. He didn't want to, not really, but he would drive himself mad sitting around the flat wondering what was happening to Rose. It would do him good to get out, and he could bring his phone with him. "Sure, that's a great idea. Thanks."

"Wonderful!" The Doctor could hear the surprise in the other man's voice. It was true that he had always rebuffed invitations to social gatherings with his colleagues. He always wanted to be with Rose, and besides, how would he answer those most basic small talk questions about where he grew up, what family he had? But today, he felt like he could not stand being by himself any longer. And he really should get to know his workmates better, if he planned on staying in this job.

Matt continued, "You should bring your girlfriend…Rose, is it?"

"She's…she's away, for her job."

"So you're alone anyway. Perfect! I'm glad I thought to call."

"Yes, I am too. Where are you meeting?"

"The King Stag. Do you know it?"

"I think so, yes. When?"

"We're on our way now. Just come when you can."

"Will do. Thanks, Matt."

****  
><strong>The pub<strong>, when he got there, was warm and crowded. He stood for a moment inside the door, searching the crowd for a familiar face. From off to his left he heard, "John!" and turned to see Matt with his arm raised, waving him over.

Half an hour later, he marveled at how normal he felt, how happy. The overpowering stress of his fight with Rose and his worry about her was ebbing with company and laughter. He kept his phone, set on vibrate, in the pocket of his jeans so he would know if she called. He was holding the remains of his second drink–he should be careful about that, he thought in passing, given how much he had sweated during his run earlier–and chatting away to a group that included some of the people from work as well as a few who had simply been at the pub and organically become part of the conversation. Matt returned from the bar and gave him a fresh gin and tonic, removing the empty glass from his other hand. "Thanks, mate," the Doctor said. He was so glad he had come. It had been a bit awkward for the first few minutes after his arrival, but then Annie, who taught maths, had launched into an anecdote about a trouble-making student known to all of them, which had them all laughing within moments. This led in turn to a great deal of cheerful venting about work and then on to more diverse subjects. It was so easy, so low-key. No one's life had been recently threatened. No one discussed plots that menaced the entire population of thee earth and needed countering. No one had been wounded on the job and had scars to show off. He felt momentarily guilty, with Rose away, to be enjoying the light chatter of people who didn't know about the existence of other universes, or even–most likely–of Torchwood. But he quashed the feeling and took another sip of his drink.

He was beginning to feel pleasantly light-headed, and so when he saw a seat free at the bar he made his way there. Sliding onto the stool, he accidently jostled Annie with his elbow, but his apology went unheard. She was standing next to the seat, up on tiptoes, bent over the bar so that she could give her order and have the bartender hear her above the din. The bartender looked skeptical as she explained and gestured, but eventually he shrugged and left to make the drink. Annie grinned at the Doctor and said, "Let's see how this turns out."

The Doctor took the opportunity to watch his colleague with more attention than he had thus far that evening. Annie was the teacher with whom he interacted the most at work. Because he taught physics and she taught maths, they often had overlap in their class lists and had to cooperate in helping students who were struggling. She was exceedingly good at her job, tough but beloved by the students; not a mean feat since maths were often dreaded as a subject. He had also, of course, noticed that she was quite pretty. Probably about thirty, he estimated, somewhere between his human age and Rose's. She was quite tall for a woman, almost as tall as him, with her dark hair cut short in a gamine style. Her skin was pale in a striking contrast to her hair, her eyes a deep green, her eyebrows dark and strongly shaped. She was still dressed for work, in a burgundy knit wrap dress, sheer black stockings, and heels. The outfit highlighted her curves and yet was completely tasteful, appropriate for teaching. She wore a necklace that he had never seen her without–a gold chain with two dull gold bands hanging on it, one larger than the other. It was slightly shabby, the gold of the bands visibly dinged and stained, and it always contrasted a bit with the elegance of her clothing. She dressed more formally for work than most teachers did, but then so did he–he had never gotten out of the habit of wearing a suit on a daily basis. It was something they had both remarked upon when they first met. Now, however, her polished appearance made the Doctor feel a bit scruffy in his jeans and hooded sweatshirt. At least, he thought in passing, he had showered and shaved after his run, so he was fairly confident that he didn't smell bad.

He reflected that unlike Matt, who was gossipy and confiding, Annie was a closed book. He worked side-by-side with her each day but knew almost nothing about her life, and she had never asked him about his. Matt, on the other hand, chatted pretty much endlessly to the Doctor, and had done since the first day they ate lunch together. The Doctor knew, for example, that Matt was neck-deep in a crush on Annie but had not had the courage to approach her. In fact, he suspected that Matt had invited him tonight to act as a bridge between the two. Well, if that was so, he didn't mind. It was just so good to be out of the house.

A few minutes later the bartender returned with the drink and Annie paid and turned, leaning on the bar next to the Doctor's chair. "Cheers, John," she offered, clinking her glass to his. She took a sip and nodded, saying, "Not bad at all."

He asked, "What is that strange concoction?"

She laughed. "Not all that strange really, just an Old Fashioned–bourbon, bitters, sugar, orange. But at some pubs they pretend they've never heard of bourbon."

"They think you should be drinking Scotch, I suppose."

"Most likely." She took another drink. "But I developed a taste for bourbon when I was younger."

"Oh yes? How?"

"I lived in America for two years."

"Really?" He looked at her with increased interest. Most of their colleagues seemed not to have lived anywhere but London. "Where?"

"Chicago."

She offered nothing further, so he pressed a bit. "What took you there?"

Annie sighed and, finding the barstool behind her suddenly vacant, slid into it and crossed her legs. "When I was at university, my final year, I met an American. He was a graduate student in history at the University of Chicago and was in the UK for the year to do research for his dissertation, mostly at the Bodleian. We…we started dating and when the year was over and I was done with my degree, he asked me to come back with him."

"Ah. Did you work in Chicago?"

"I did. I had a green card because we got married soon after we got to the States. I got a job in a public school–their kind of public school, a state school–where they were desperate for teachers and didn't care too much about my lack of experience. So I did that and Mark worked on his dissertation."

Something in her tone made his stomach clench, but he asked anyway. "What happened?"

She kept her gaze on the middle distance. "He died. Hit by a car when he was cycling."

Spontaneously he reached out and grasped her free hand. "Oh, God, Annie. I'm sorry."

She returned the pressure. "Thanks."

"You came back here after that?"

"I didn't want to at first. Honestly, the first couple of months I didn't want to leave our apartment, just wanted to stay there, surrounded by his things. He is buried in a cemetery in the suburbs of the city, where he grew up, and I liked to visit his grave. But after a while, I was just so lonely. My whole life there was built around him; when he was gone, there was nothing left for me. I wanted to come home, to my family and to familiar things." She was silent for a long moment, then shook herself and smiled at him. "But I miss the bourbon. So I harass bartenders in pubs."

"How long have you been back?"

"Let's see. Mark died when I was about to turn twenty-three. So, a little over five years."

She took a drink and her attention wandered to the nearby group of their colleagues who laughed uproariously, presumably in response to some joke that had been told. The Doctor considered her. He had learned more about her in the last five minutes that in the months they had worked together. He had taken note, naturally, of the fact that a pretty woman of her age wore no wedding ring and mentioned no partner, but he had not really thought about it, just assumed she was single. It turned out to be much more complex than that–she had married and lost, and presumably not yet found anyone else. Her story explained her necklace, and he pondered it now, the two slightly worn and cheap looking gold bands lying in the hollow of her throat. Just the sort of rings that a graduate student and a first-year teacher could afford. Somehow the sight of that necklace drove her story home more deeply and directly than her words, and he swallowed over a lump in his throat. It could be so unjust, this human life.

He touched her arm. "I didn't mean to put my foot into this…make you tell me this story. I had no idea."

"It's not something I talk about much at work. It's…" She took a breath. "People don't know how to deal with a widow in her twenties. They feel awkward, don't know what to say."

"As I just proved."

She laid a hand on his shoulder. "You did fine, John. And it's nice to talk about it now and then. To say his name. Thanks for listening." She paused, and then said, "Do you mind me asking…have you lost someone?" He stared at her in surprise, and she blushed. "I'm sorry. It's just…at work, you often seem sad, at quiet moments. A bit lost. It…" She sighed, impatient with her lack of eloquence. "It looked familiar to me, if that makes sense."

He bent his head for a moment, and then said, "Yes, I have lost people, but not…"

Matt chose that moment to appear in front of them, cheerfully drunk. "Annie! John! What are you two talking about?"

Annie glanced at the Doctor and then responded, "Oh, just work stuff."

"Come and play darts."

"Really? I'm comfortable here." Annie gestured to her coveted seat in the crowded bar.

"Come on, Annie," Matt cajoled. "You know you're better than anyone, and you don't even look drunk. I need you on my team."

She sighed. "Oh, all right." With a grin at the Doctor, she slid off her chair and headed in the direction of the darts board. The Doctor did not miss the look of absolute hunger that passed through Matt's eyes as he watched her go. The younger man collected himself, however, and said, "John, you too. Come on."

**An hour** later the Doctor and Annie emerged from the pub into cold air that felt like a slap in the face. The Doctor knew he was drunker than his companion–she had nursed her single bourbon cocktail for the remainder of the evening–so it was more for his benefit for hers that they linked arms as they headed toward the nearest Tube station.

After a few minutes of walking, when he finally felt secure in his gait, the Doctor said, "Matt was right. You are a very fine darts player."

"Why, thank you. I played a lot at university."

They continued on in silence. The side of her body was pressing against his. He could feel her breast against his arm, and he felt a twinge of desire in response. He hunched his shoulders and glanced downward, relieved to find that his coat completely covered any sign of what his treacherous body was doing. Ridiculous human body, he thought with a wave of resentment. The last thing he wanted was to embarrass Annie; he liked her tremendously and felt hopeful that he had found a new friend. A few steps further and he stumbled slightly on uneven pavement, causing her to put her arm around him to steady him. She chuckled. "I can't imagine what Matt was thinking, planning this outing for a weeknight. We are all going to be worse than useless in the morning."

"True. Do you think the kids will notice?"

She laughed again. "You have a point. It's unlikely."

"I think Matt will be the worst off."

She grimaced. "Yeah. Poor guy. Did you check on him before we left?"

"He'll be fine. I offered to bring him home, but he wasn't quite ready to leave the bathroom yet."

"It's amazing he didn't wound anyone with a dart." She squeezed the Doctor's arm. "Still. His loss, my gain."

They turned the corner and there was the Tube stop ahead of them. She disengaged her arm from his. "Will you take the train, John?"

"Yeah. I could walk, but I think I better get home quickly so I can get some sleep." He glanced at his watch. "However little that may be. You?"

"I live near here, so I'll just walk." She met his eyes. "Would you…" She looked off to the side and seemed to be debating something with herself. Finally, she turned back and saw him watching her. She smiled self-consciously. "I'm naff at this. It's been too long."

He furrowed his brow. "At what? You don't seem to be naff at anything."

He heard her intake of breath and before he knew what was happening, she stepped forward and pressed her lips to his, her hands gripping his biceps. His heart rate leapt in response and for just a moment his hands fell to her waist and held her to him, feeling the pleasure of having her body against his, before he came to his senses and took her by the shoulders, gently putting a few inches between them.

"Annie, I have a girlfriend."

Horror rose in her eyes and she stepped back two paces. Her face flushed red. "Oh, God, I'm sorry."

"It's okay…"

But she was still stammering an apology. "I didn't know. You never mentioned anyone, and I…well, I suppose I should have guessed. Stupid of me. I'm sorry."

To his dismay he saw tears in her eyes. He moved toward her and clasped her hands. "Annie, please. Please. Don't beat yourself up. It was my fault. You and I, we've never talked about personal stuff before, and I didn't mention Rose tonight because she and I had a fight and…I just wanted to forget about it. I had so much fun out with all of you–I should have done it sooner. I should have opened up to all of you sooner." She stared at her shoes as he said all of this. He lifted her chin and used his thumb to wipe away the single tear track on her left cheek. "Annie, you're wonderful. If I wasn't…well. You're wonderful. And you did nothing wrong."

She nodded silently.

"Please, Annie. Tell me I haven't ruined things?"

"You? I'm the one who…" she made a vague gesture toward his mouth.

"Look. Can we split the blame and move on?"

That got a small smile. "Okay."

"Okay. Friends?"

"Of course."

He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. "Get home safely, okay?"

"I will. Have a good night." She turned away and then, after a moment, turned back. "John?"

"Yes?"

"I hope I'm not sticking my nose in, but whatever you fought about…" She paused, her gaze holding his. "Fix it. Life's too short. Take it from someone who knows."

**The Doctor** swore, fumbling for the phone on his bedside table and trying to focus his bleary eyes enough to answer it. Finally, he succeeded in finding the button. "Rose?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Rose!" He could do nothing but repeat her name stupidly. "Rose."

"Doctor, I'm coming home."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**It was** remarkable, Rose thought, how much of her job consisted of sitting and waiting. Certainly there were moments of tremendous danger and excitement and, she supposed, there was a sort of dubious glamour to the job from an outsider's perspective. But really, a startling amount of her time was spent just…waiting. She shifted position, trying to get more comfortable on the hard metal bench in the windowless and featureless room in which she currently sat. The creature who put her here had had a vaguely apologetic air about him as he cuffed her to a metal ring protruding from the wall. He needn't have worried, as she was not alarmed by this turn of events–how often had she been cuffed on spaceships, after all? Plus, they may have taken the blaster from her hip but they had not searched under her clothes and thus had not found the small kit harnessed in her armpit that contained all sorts of useful tools, including a tiny, basic sort of sonic screwdriver that the Doctor had created for her recently. She could easily break out if she had to, but for now she was not going to exert herself to do so. They had said Jake would be back in an hour, and he still had twenty minutes left.

It was, in fact, a spaceship that they found on the other side of the portal. Her immediate impression, which Jake had shared, was that the aliens were merely curious, not hostile. This was not the first time they had dealt with such a group–many aliens who first came into contact with Earth assumed that because humans did not travel regularly in space, they had no knowledge of alien races. Therefore, the reasoning went, these primitive creatures would not notice the scientific surveys that were conducted by the vastly superior visiting alien race. There might be a few disappearances here and there, but the people were quickly returned unharmed. Dealing with these incursions was usually just a matter of Torchwood making contact with the aliens and explaining that yes, indeed, we do know you're out there, and yes, we do notice when people disappear, so no, please don't just take people for analysis, thanks awfully much, but rather direct all inquiries to the following authorities. "Intergalactic receptionists, us," Jake had been known to comment at the end of such missions.

Jake and Rose had been prepared to play exactly that role with this newly-arrived set of aliens. A small complication had arisen, however–and Rose could just hear her Time Lord Doctor say, gleefully, "A complication, Rose!"–when the aliens discovered that Rose was female. Turns out, females on their planet did not travel or do dangerous work and they were shocked–shocked!–to discover that human females did so. Rose had resisted the urge to roll her eyes, or to smack Jake when he said, his expression all pious seriousness, "I'll take care of this, Rose. You wait here, where it's safe." The aliens had nodded approvingly and taken her off to her current holding cell, but she saw the laughter in Jake's eyes as he watched her go. Laugh away, Jake my dearest, she thought to herself, arching an eyebrow back at him. She would get even with him later, and he knew it.

So now here she was, safely if somewhat uncomfortably ensconced while her partner took care of things. Wasn't it bloody typical, she thought with grim humor, that she and the Doctor had fought bitterly about the dangers of a mission that turned out to be a cake-walk. She sighed and rubbed her face with her free hand, trying to fight down the feeling of panic that twisted her stomach. She had felt sick with tension ever since she woke up that morning on her couch at Torchwood, her righteous anger having drained away during the night, replaced by exhaustion, regret, and the fear that she had bolloxed things up irreparably. Jake had been right–she should have called the Doctor before they came through the portal. But she had been afraid that he would break her focus on the mission. No, be honest, Rose, she told herself. She was more afraid that she would say the wrong thing, that she would lose her temper again, or, maybe worse, weep and beg his forgiveness, beg him not to leave her.

What a state she was in. She thought of the tender way Jake had cleaned her up that morning, and tears of shame filled her eyes. He shouldn't have to find her in that condition, shouldn't have to take care of her. No one should. She was Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, for God's sake. She shouldn't need her mum or a lover or anyone else. What would the Time Lord think of her now? she wondered, as a tear dropped onto her cheek.

But therein lay the problem, or at least part of it. She was always measuring herself against the Time Lord, trying to follow his example. She had idolized as well as loved him, and after she lost him, she had tried to model her behavior on what he would have wanted her to do. Tried to be something that would make him proud. But she simply did not have his capacity to live with loneliness, without love. Perhaps it was her human nature or her own personal weakness, she didn't know. But she needed others in a way he never did, or never allowed himself to do. Jake, her mother, Tony, her beloved human Doctor…she needed them all, desperately, but so often she showed it by pushing them away. And it had started with her Time Lord. She had dropped an entire life to run away with him, with almost no hesitation. Her relationship with Mickey–which, admittedly, was not meant to be a life-long romance, but still deserved better care than she had given it–never stood a chance after that. She knew that her mother still smarted from her decision to leave her without a second glance, back during the Dalek and Cyberman attack. And now she was doing it with her new Doctor, refusing to give up any aspect of the job that had sustained her at her darkest hour. Jake was right–the Doctor's worry for her wasn't crazy or condescending, given the nature of her work. In fact, it was only natural.

It was a terrible feature of being human, she thought, that you could know that something was a mistake while not being able to stop yourself from doing it. If she asked herself straight out–would you give up your Doctor to have your job?–the answer would be absolutely not. She loved her Doctor, even more than she had loved her Time Lord, because the love was reciprocated. He was warmer, more sensitive, more loving, in every way better matched to her. There were other jobs in the world, but he was unique in the universe. Uniquely suited for her. And yet, to give up her job, or even certain parts of it…it felt like clinging to the edge of a cliff and being asked to let go. For so long, Torchwood had been why she got up in the morning, what made her feel like her existence in this universe had a purpose. More than that, she was good at it, her best friends were there, and it benefited others.

But in the end, it really wasn't about the job, and she recognized that. It was a matter of trusting that this human Doctor would not leave her as the Time Lord had. If she could do that, really and truly, then she could make compromises about anything else. But that was easier said than done. She honestly wasn't sure she could survive another abandonment, and without her work, it would be hopeless. And her Doctor, for all his protestations of love and his great knowledge of the universe, was an amateur at being human. He and she were still in the honeymoon phase, with all their sexual energy focused on each other. He had no idea what temptation was like. And temptation would come, she had no doubt about that. He was so fucking gorgeous that it was only a matter of time before he had other offers. And who would blame him, really, if he was tempted to take up with someone who was not the ball of insecurities and difficulties that made up one Rose Marion Tyler?

As she thought of her Doctor, the image of his face the night before came before her eyes, his features twisted with emotion, his shoulders heaving after he flung the wine glass. He had been so angry with her, and she could not blame him. She had, after all, implied that while she had suffered and lost, that he had had an easy time of it. A wave of shame went through her and even though she was sitting alone in a room thousands of miles away from him, she blushed, thinking of how unfair her words had been. As people kept reminding her, he had given up time and space to be with her. And in return he got…what exactly? She knew she had to have faith that his love for her made it a fair trade. But faith was something she was notably lacking these days. She sighed. There were no guarantees. He had always been honest with her about that. She had to make the leap of faith. Accept his love wholeheartedly and offer her own, or let him find someone else. The latter idea was painful beyond measure, but it was only fair to him, if she couldn't get herself together. She had a decision to make, and so did he.

**At precisely** two minutes before Jake's appointed time of return, the door to her cell swung open, the cuff around her wrist sprang apart, and she looked up to see her partner's blond head appear through the doorway, impish grin firmly in place. He sang tunelessly, "Rosalita, jump a little lighter…"

She shook her head and stretched as she stood up. "Springsteen? Really?"

"You taught it to me, gorgeous."

"I did, to my eternal regret. Are we done here?"

Jake grimaced. "Not quite. In exchange for leaving the people on the planet alone, they want us to stay for a few days, do some tests on us." He saw the look on her face. "Non-invasive, they assure me."

"Bloody hell."

"For what it's worth, I believe them. They're genuinely curious, and I think they'll keep their word."

She had long ago learned that Jake's instincts were worth a great deal, so she sighed resignedly. "I take it it's okay in their minds to experiment on females, even if we can't participate in negotiations?"

Jake's wicked smile returned. "Oh, they're particularly interested in you, Rosalita."

"Well, that's just brilliant." Suddenly, she remembered the Doctor. He'd be frantic if he didn't hear from her for days.

Jake saw the shadow pass across her face and spoke quickly. "I told them we have a man on the surface waiting for updates. They agreed to let us be in constant communication with Geoff. He can pass messages on to the Doctor."

She nodded. Now the only problem was thinking of what to say.

**"Doctor, I'm** coming home."

"Rose! You're back? On Earth?"

"Yes. I'm in the car, on the motorway to London." She paused, then continued, her tone oddly tentative and polite. "I'm sorry if I woke you."

"Don't be daft. Are you coming right here? I'll call in and stay home from work."

"No, I have to go to Torchwood. I need to report and they'll need to run tests on Jake and me, run the decontamination protocol on us…"

"Are you alright? Those aliens, the tests, you said…"

"I'm fine, Doctor. They kept their word, nothing invasive. Just lots of scans. The decon is just standard procedure, you know that. But the point is, it'll take time. I won't be done until afternoon. So go to work, and we'll meet back at the flat later."

"But…" He sighed. "Okay."

He sounded so deflated. She said gently, "Work will make the time past more quickly. We'll have the whole weekend then."

"Yes, you're right."

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"I missed you. I'm so sorry…"

"I missed you too. I love you, Rose." Now she could hear the smile in his voice, and it made her want to weep.

"And I you, Doctor."

****  
><strong>He had<strong> been home only a few minutes. Enough time to pull loose his tie, take off his coat and suit jacket, and drop all three on a plush chair in the living room. He unbuttoned one cuff and rolled it up to his elbow. He had just started on the other sleeve when he heard the scrape of a key in the lock. He froze and stared at the door as it opened. And suddenly, there she was, looking very young and very tired. She wore tatty sweatpants and an enormous old sweatshirt that he knew had been Mickey's. Her hair was damp and hung loose around her face. She saw him immediately across the dark room, meeting his gaze. She slowly set down the two bags she was carrying and straightened again, her eyes never leaving his. Her lips parted and she whispered, in a voice barely audible even to him: "Doctor."

"Hello."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**It seemed** to Rose that for the longest time neither of them moved or spoke. He stood facing her across their large living room, still wearing his work clothes, although with his tie and jacket gone and one sleeve rolled up. His hand lay motionless on the cuff of his other sleeve. Despite the dim light of the room–had he not even had time to turn on a lamp before she arrived?–she could see his eyes clearly, their dark depths boring into her. She felt pinned by his gaze, like an insect on a card, her back pressed against the door, her key ring clutched in her hand. She had hoped to get home before him and change into something a bit more fetching than Mickey's old sweatshirt, but here she was, wearing the only clothes that were in her Torchwood locker, her hair stubbornly wet from her shower hanging limply around her face, which was scrubbed free of makeup. Her nervous fingers found a hole at the side seam of her shirt and fiddled with it. So much for glamorous reunions, she thought, licking her lips nervously as she kept her eyes on his.

Finally, he spoke, barely above a whisper. "You're all right?"

She nodded, finding herself unable to reply.

"You said they didn't hurt you?"

Another nod.

"Right." Now he moved, faster than she would have believed. Suddenly he was in front of her, his hands sinking into her damp hair, his mouth on hers, his body pressing her into the wood of the door. She moaned into his mouth, entwining her arms, keys still in hand, around his neck to pull him closer. He felt the keys against his neck and reached around to wrench them out of her hand, tossing them with a clang to the floor. She squeaked, feeling the sharp metal scrape her finger. He pulled away from her, grasping her hand and looking down at the small red scratch the keys had left. "It's okay," she panted. He didn't reply, but rather sucked the sore digit into his mouth, making her groan anew. With her free hand, she went to work pulling his shirt from his pants, then tried to unbutton it one-handed, with little success. Releasing her finger, he growled, "Stop it," and pinned her arms to the door. "Stay still." She did her best to comply, although his tone made her knees tremble as desire swept through her. He dropped to his knees and pulled off her shoes and socks, then in one motion dragged down her pants and knickers, allowing her to step out of them and then sending them flying after her keys. Then his mouth and hands were on her, testing her readiness and making her cry out.

After far too little time he stood up again and roughly undid his own trousers, pushing them down just far enough to suffice and then hoisting her in his arms, pressing her even more firmly into the door. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, feeling both his strength and the adrenaline coursing through him in the ease with which he manipulated her body. "This okay?" he whispered. "God, yes, please," she muttered in return before he slid inside her.

Her eyes closed and her head fell back with a thunk at the utter bliss of him, but then he hissed, "Look at me, Rose," and she exerted all her effort to lift her head and meet his eyes. "Don't stop looking at me," he said, and she felt her muscles contract around him at his tone of command. She nodded, and he began, tortuously slowly, to move.

She whimpered at each stroke, as he hit her just right, like he always did, and it had been so long, and she had missed him so much. She was not going to last long. Neither was he, she realized, as she saw his mouth twist with the pleasure of it. Then he was talking to her, still in an undertone, but with such force and emotion that she heard every word and felt them in her heart. "You will not leave me like that again. You will not. Ah, Rose. You can't…you can't leave me."

"Shh, I'm not leaving. I'm here."

"I need you. God, I need you. Rose… If something happened…and we had fought…if our last words to each other…were angry…"

"I know. I'm sorry. I love….oh…God…" Her body seized up and she was unable to finish her sentence or even keep her eyes open as she came with a loud cry. He did not scold her for breaking his gaze, however, but rather after several more thrusts he pressed into her so hard it seemed that he might drive them both right through the door. He buried his face into her neck and made no noise, even as his every muscle went rigid and his body shook with release. She clutched him with all her limbs, rubbing his back, whispering her love for him into his ear.

After what seemed like several minutes, his grip on her finally began to relax and slowly he lowered her legs to the ground. They both whimpered softly as he slid out of her and they remained close together, both breathing hard, leaning against the door. Finally he lifted his head from her shoulder. "I didn't hurt you?"

She treated him to one of her most blazing smiles. "Not in the least."

"I missed you."

She reached up to kiss him, whispering against his lips, "I could tell. Me too, you."

"Are you hungry, or can we go to bed? I want to hold you."

"Bed, my love."

**Somewhere between** the front door and the bed the rest of their clothes vanished, so when he lay down and she slid in next to him they were both naked. She cuddled into her place at his side, one arm and leg draped over him, her head on his shoulder. She heard the rumble of a contented laugh deep in his throat, and she smiled into his chest in response, knowing that he was thinking of one of the first times they had made love and snuggled up in just this way afterward, when he had remarked that she fit him like a puzzle piece he didn't know was missing. That had earned him a breathless snog and, shortly thereafter, another shag.

Now they lay in silence, her fingers tracing lightly over his chest. They both knew that they had to discuss what had happened, to try to work past the land mines that seemed to pepper their relationship, but they both seemed loath to disturb the blissful relaxed atmosphere.

Finally he drew a deep breath and said, "Rose, I shouldn't have…" at the same time that she blurted out, "Doctor, I shouldn't have…" And then they both laughed and he hugged her tighter. But then he sobered and rolled to face her. "We do need to talk, Rose."

"I know."

"It's true that I shouldn't have tried to forbid you go to. And I never meant to question your abilities, or Jake and Geoff's. But you have to realize that it's bloody awful to watch you head out on these missions and not be with you."

"You could be with me. You could work for Torchwood full-time."

"I know that I could. But…I like teaching, Rose. I like the…quiet accomplishment of it. And the only reason I'd want to work for Torchwood is to keep you safe, not because I want to do the work. Or rather, not more than I already do."

She nodded. "I know. And I know what a wonderful teacher you will be. Probably already are, knowing you."

"Oh, no, I'm still learning. But I think I can get there."

"Doctor, I…intellectually I totally get it, your concerns about my job. And I would probably be angry if you weren't worried about me. And Jake said…"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Jake?"

She gave him a look. "Get used to it, Doctor. I tell Jake almost everything."

He sighed, feigning a put-upon air, but she only rolled her eyes and continued. "Jake made the point that I would be going spare every day if you had decided to join the police or the fire brigade or something like that. And he's right. So, I get it." She paused.

"But?"

"But. Giving it up, even part of it, feels like…letting go of my life preserver. It really was my reason for existing, for a while there."

He stroked the side of her face. "I'm not actually asking for you to give it up, Rose. Just to be…less cavalier about your safety. And to stop acting like Geoff is the only one with responsibilities and ties. Like he's the only one who has something to lose."

She nodded slowly. "That's fair. It's really only old habit that keeps us doing things that way. I can talk to him and Jake about rotating shifts of who goes on the most dangerous part of the mission. Would that help?"

"It would. I'm not promising I'll never get scared again, though."

"And I'm not promising I'll never get defensive. Or make bad decisions, fueled by adrenaline, or because I'm trying to spare my team."

He regarded her solemnly. "So I'm going to have to learn to live with being afraid for you?"

She stared back at him. "'S part of being human, Doctor."

"Blimey." He rolled onto his back and was silent for a long moment. She might have thought he was angry at her, except that he held tightly to her hand and kept up a gentle pattern on her palm with his thumb. Finally, he said, "Why are you always afraid, then? You're more used to being human than I am."

She said, jokingly, evasively, "I'm not sure a person ever gets used to being human."

He turned his body back to face hers. "You know what I mean."

She sighed. "I do."

"It seems like you're always waiting for me to fuck up. To do something stupid and hurtful to you. No doubt I do, and I will, but I don't try to and I don't relish it when I do."

"I know, Doctor…"

"It…," he sighed in frustration. "It hurts, Rose. That you don't trust me."

She felt a chill of anger, and shame, and the desire to retreat, and she tried to quell them all. He deserved her full effort here. So did she, for that matter. So instead of avoiding the issue, she just said it. "I'm afraid you'll leave me."

He went up on one elbow and brought a finger to stroke her jaw line. "Why would I leave you?"

"You did before."

"He did."

"You are him. You keep telling me that."

"Have I told you that lately?"

Taken aback, she stared at him for a moment, trying to recall. "Um…"

"I told you that at the beginning because I wasn't sure who–or what–I was. I'm starting to get a better idea. A lot of me is him, but I'm very different now. He loved you, Rose. But he didn't need you the way that I do."

"Doctor…can I ask…" She sighed.

"Anything. You know that."

"Why didn't he come to find me here? Why did it have to be me that figured out a way to get to him? Why didn't he love me enough?" A tear trickled down her cheek.

"Oh, Rose." He shook his head.

"Don't avoid the question. Tell me."

"I'm not avoiding. I'm figuring out how to answer." He sighed, groping for words. "He thought there was no way. He couldn't conceive of how to do it. And I think he felt that…to hope would be cruel and pointless. So he put the idea away."

"But not me. Like a little dog, always rushing to be with him, even if it meant crossing universes."

"He never thought that, Rose. Nor do I. You're just more brilliant than him."

She barked a laugh of disbelief. "A shop girl? More brilliant than the last of the Time Lords."

"Yep. Absolutely." He felt her begin to withdraw and slid his hand into her hair, holding her gaze on his. "I'm not lying, Rose. Of course, you don't know as many languages, haven't been as many places, haven't lived as long. But for warmth, and creativity, and innovation, and sheer brilliant stubbornness, you've got him beat. Many humans do. Why d'you think he was so fascinated with you lot?"

"And what about you?"

"Me? I'm not the idiot he was. I picked you."

"You got left behind."

He pulled back and blinked at her, astonished. "What?"

"You got left here, like me."

He scrunched his face up and said again, "What?"

"Why are you being so dense? He left both of us here. You know," she waved her hand at him and approximated the Time Lord's commanding tone, "He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own."

Her Doctor smiled slowly. "Yes. But it wasn't the only option to leave me here with you. He could have put me in another universe entirely, while the walls were still down. Or kept me with him. But he knew I wanted to be with you."

Her jaw dropped open. After a moment, she sputtered, "You…you could have been on the TARDIS?"

"Sure. Although, can you imagine the fights he and I would have had?" He shuddered dramatically.

She was, however, in no mood to be amused. "You picked me, over the TARDIS?"

He looked directly in her eyes. "Yes."

"Are you daft?"

He spluttered a laugh. "Well, I guess I should be glad it wasn't your decision where I stayed!"

"That's not what I mean! You gave up…everything! And you got…"

He pressed his fingers to her lips, stopping her. "I got everything, Rose."

Now she was crying again, but also shaking her head, frustrated. "Why would you do that? How can I live up to that?"

"You don't need to live up to anything. I have one life. I want to live it with you. If we fail, if we break up in the future–and I don't think we will, but let's just say–then at least I will have tried my utmost. To leave you behind again, not to try…well, that's not something that this me could do."

The only possible answer to that was to kiss him senseless, which she did. He ended up spread-eagled helplessly on his back, as she tried to communicate all her love for him with the action of her lips and tongue, her body draped over his. When she pulled back, he lay gasping wordlessly for air for a minute before saying, "Yeah, right decision. Unquestionably the right decision."

Now she laughed. "Well, if it's all about sex, I just hope you never get a better offer."

He turned to her, serious again. "I want you to know, Rose, that I did get an offer. Another woman kissed me, while you were gone."

Rose stared at him, waiting for a surge of panic or anger to invade her heart. But it didn't. A flutter, yes. But she looked in his eyes, so full of love for her, and she felt, for the most part, calm. She raised her eyebrows. "Did she now? Who was it?"

"A woman at work. A friend. Someone who I hope will be your friend too. She didn't know about you, Rose. I haven't shared private stuff at work."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Well, I do. I guess I didn't know how to construct my whole back-story, what to say when people asked where I grew up, and so on. And with regard to you…well, there's the whole Vitex heiress thing, isn't there?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes, I suppose so. So this woman kissed you, thinking you were single?"

"Yes. You won't hold it against her, will you?"

Rose smiled. "Hold it against her? She'd have been blind not to. Look at you."

He preened for just a moment, but then grew serious again. "Point is, she's a lovely woman, intelligent, all that. And it wasn't…unpleasant to kiss her." Rose snorted, and he continued hurriedly. "My body reacted, a bit, but…I didn't want more. Rose, I want you."

"I want you too, Doctor. Always. I just…need to stop being scared."

"I don't know why you're so scared I'm going to leave you. After all, you were left behind as my caretaker, to watch over the genocidal maniac. You might be just as keen to leave me."

She stared at him. "I didn't think of it that way."

He voice contained the gentlest of reproofs. "You're not the only one who lost things to get here, Rose. And you're not the only one who will be devastated if things don't work out."

She nodded, accepting this, then looked at him with the barest glint of humor in her eyes. "So we're just two sad sacks, abandoned by a Time Lord, who need each other?"

"Mmm." He scooted closer and caught her mouth with his. "Very sad," he murmured between kisses. "Very much need."

She pulled back, her lips quirking. "Well then. What do you think we should do?"

"Weeeeeellll…" He paused for effect, eyes on the ceiling, his tongue touching his teeth, for so long that she giggled and smacked him lightly on the arm. Then he turned his gaze to hers, suddenly all seriousness, and captured her hand, kissing her knuckles. "You could marry me, Rose Tyler. If you want."

**_fin_**


End file.
